The three dynamics of urban ambiances

The three dynamics of urban ambiances
Jean-Paul Thibaud
In Sites of Sound: Of Architecture and the Ear Vol. 2.
Brandon LaBelle & Claudia Martinho (eds.)
Errant Bodies Press, Berlin, 2011, pp. 43-53
Urban space provides numerous ambiances to be felt with all the senses. Whether
we think of a lively outdoor marketplace or a dull parking lot, an attractive historical center or
a casual subway station, the very way we relate to those places is based on the sensory
experience they involve. It is a matter of light and colour, sound, smell, touch and heat, and
also the manner we walk and talk, move and look, relate and behave. Urban ambiances
operate each time a subtle interweaving of synaesthesia and kinaesthesia occurs, as a
complex mixture of sensation and movement.
To put it in a few words, an ambiance can be defined as a time-space qualified from a
sensory point of view. It relates to the sensing and feeling of a place. Each ambiance
involves a specific mood expressed in the material presence of things and embodied in the
way of being of city dwellers. Thus, ambiance is both subjective and objective: it involves the
lived experience of people as well as the built environment of the place.
How is it possible to account for the sensory variations of a public space? In what
respect are urban ambiances to be described as a process of continuous creation? In what
way do sounds and social practices contribute to sensitizing the urban experience? By
exploring such questions I aim to reveal the way in which an ambiance emerges and
disintegrates. Two considerations prompt these questions: first, urban ambiances are never
laid down once and for all, rather they are constantly evolving, always in production; second,
they cannot be dissociated from the situated activity of city-dwellers. In other words our
hypothesis is that the notion of ambiance makes it possible to conceptualise the mutual
determination of the built environment and social practice.
We should start by pointing out that urban ambiances cannot be reduced to a simple
backdrop providing a framework for the activity of city-dwellers. If that was the case in situ
perception would only evolve as a form of disconnected contemplation, based on the
subject's withdrawal from their immediate environment. On the contrary, by endowing the
urban space with particular properties and qualities, ambiances engage passers-by
physically, connecting them to the site. As we shall see in due course, ambiances prompt
forms of movement, expression and perception that are an essential part of our public
conduct. Far from being simple epiphenomena of practical action, ambiances place activities
in a context and invest situations at a sensory motor level. In other words the urban
environment cannot be defined as a homogenous, neutral container into which various
practices fit. On the contrary it is a heterogeneous ecological habitat that shapes practices,
which in turn affect it.
Furthermore, city-dwellers may use the resources of a site to accomplish their
activities, but the resources are much more than just a receptacle. The way people behave in
public itself contributes to an ambiance in so far as it amplifies or neutralises certain sensory
phenomena, exacerbating or altering certain properties of the built environment. As we can
see from everyday language, people can at one and the same time “soak up” and “create” an
ambiance. From this point of view the sensory contexts of a city are only partly based on the
formal, physical characteristics of the built environment. Such considerations have serious
consequences because they confirm the relative non-completion of ambiances given their
strict spatial components and encourage us to draw conclusions based on the expressive
power of bodies in motion and related social practices.
As I shall show below we may distinguish between three main dynamics involved in
the creation of an ambiance. In the first case, ambiance emerges as the place is brought into
tune with the conduct it supports. I refer to this as a “tuned ambiance” in the sense that the
sensory phenomena reflect the close affinity that has developed between impressions and
expressions, between what is felt and what is produced, between the subject and the world.
In this case ambiance is thematized in terms of the Umwelt and engages an ecology of the
lived world. In the second case, ambiance involves slight variations of the sensory context of
the place. I call this a “modulated ambiance” in the sense that sensory phenomena fluctuate
over time and diversify in line with activities. In this case ambiance is more akin to an
updating of affordances and engages an ecology of situated perception. In the third case,
ambiance may emerge through conditioning of the place by social practice itself. This I refer
to as a “framed ambiance” in the sense that sensory phenomena are subjected to a
formatting process arising out of the accomplishment of the actions underway. In this case,
ambiance becomes primarily an instrument for giving shape to social situations and is
consequently covered by an ecology of relations in public.
I should stress that these various processes do not refer to different types of
ambiance but rather to the particular dynamics by which they emerge. In this sense they
complement one another and always work simultaneously. The proposed distinction is
therefore above all of a heuristic order. This distinction aims to clarify three basic ecological
processes that constitute an ambiance, involving respectively tuning, modulating and
formatting. It should also be noted that each of these processes involves specific domains of
thought and conceptual tools. It is consequently necessary to bear in mind that the three
regimes that I have identified relate to three overlapping points of view all relating to the
notion of ambiance.
Acclimatisation : tuned ambiance
Acclimatisation refers to a process by which ambiance and conduct are brought into
resonance, with the result that it is no longer possible to dissociate one from the other. In this
case the activity of city-dwellers is tuned as much as possible to the sensory context of the
place, simply expressing in its way the existing atmosphere. In a sense the public becomes
the ambiance, and vice-versa. This fitting proceeds from an immediacy that leaves little room
for a reflective attitude, because subject and environment merge so totally, vibrating in
unison.
Feelings. The process of acclimatisation involves background feelings that may be
thematized in terms of affectivity. From this point of view an ambiance cannot be reduced to
a sum of physical signals, nor yet a succession of distinct phenomena depending on the
sensory mode being considered. Ambiance is more a synergy between the senses that
involves the emotional aspect of a situation. A quality of sound, light or fragrance is sensed in
a single movement that confers unity on the sensory world. It should be stressed that these
affective dispositions are distinct from the six basic emotional categories identified by Darwin
(fear, anger, sadness, disgust, surprise, joy) in that most of the time they remain preconscious and often go unnoticed. It should also be noted that these impulses operate below
the opposition between subject and object. They simultaneously involve a sense of self and
the world.
For example in places saturated with all sorts of stimuli, the ambiance may be felt to
be dizzying, depressing, alarming, disturbing or frightening. These qualifiers indicate the
place's dominant quality as well as a rhythmic tension calling into play all the senses. In other
words the subject does not so much pick up on a particular noise as on the alarming
character of the sound environment, not so much the brightness of an object or surface as
the disturbing aspect of the light environment, not so much the presence of a smell as the
upsetting effect of the olfactive surroundings, etc. In so far as it contributes to the emotional
tone, an ambiance does not apply to particular objects or stimuli, but rather colours the
situation in its entirety. Phenomena are conjugated with one another to give an overall aspect
to the space through which the subject is passing. The tendency to bustling activity and
hurrying cannot be separated from feelings: the world is swarming, crawling with people in
every direction, throbbing. Everything contributes to this excessive stimulation, to an overall
tension, a sustained rhythm without it being possible to pin down a precise origin and clearly
distinguish between the various phenomena.
In other places or on other occasions, the ambiance may be perceived as peaceful,
restful, relaxing or tranquil. In this case an overall sense of unwinding is predominant,
embodied in gentle lighting and filtered natural light, a subdued, sound environment, and
relative freedom of movement and a slow gait, etc. Here again sensory phenomena overlap,
joining up in a common rhythm that gives them a single tonality. Subjects experience a
feeling of relief as they float, allow themselves to be lulled, immersed in or borne forward by
the environment. Whereas the stressful atmosphere described above tends to be lived as a
constraint, here we encounter an attitude of availability towards the surrounding world.
In short, we have here a form of receptiveness that links up with specific corporeal
states and brings the senses into synergy. The two extreme cases we have just illustrated
show that there are various ways of experiencing an atmosphere and being gripped by it.
Obviously other types of context, no doubt more subtle in form, also trigger our propensity for
being affected. Be that as it may, in their capacity as non-objectifying acts, that may be seen
more as overall situations rather than finite objects, emotional tonalities seem to have a
unifying effect on the various sensory registers.
Intercorporeity. Acclimatisation also involves the process of being-together that may
be analysed in terms of "intercorporeity". It is here that the close entanglement of bodies
comes into play, as if they were connected to each other by invisible, but very powerful
threads. Individuals adopt shared rhythms and behaviour patterns, which may vary
depending on circumstance and place. These common ways of being are based on collective
forms of motivity.
In some cases the environment is so full of constraints that individual expression
melts into and is diluted in a collective pool. Such dilution of identities occurs, for instance,
when the subject can no longer hear their own sound output. Voices melt into the din, much
as steps are drowned by the indistinct uproar. It is hard to tell who is producing what sound.
Not only is human output all mixed up without any chance of differentiation, but human
sounds may mix with mechanical noises too: the murmur of voices merges with the urban
drone, the mass of conversations may be confused with the noise of a fountain or escalator,
etc. Here, sonic ambiance defies any attempt to break it down into identifiable signals. It is
more a sort of whole, a confused uproar or sound fog, leaving little room for single events or
noticeable features. Similarly, at a kinaesthetic level the gestures of each person take part in
an overall movement, driving each other. Crowd conditions thus tend to create a form of
agitation from which the subject has difficulty escaping. In this case the imaginary of the
milling and swarming expresses the relative lack of differentiation between individuals who
move at more or less the same speed. The gestures of each person take part in an overall
movement and drive one another. But more generally, social interaction can only occur if
interpersonal behaviour is brought into phase.
The underlying mechanism of bodily adjustment consists in adapting one's conduct to
suit local conditions and circumstances. Depending on where they are passers-by begin to
whisper or, on the contrary, raise their voices. Some locations are places where one talks
loudly, in others it is unthinkable to raise one's voice. It is as if the ambiance in question had
to be extended collectively, as if some tacit injunction required the public to adjust its
behaviour bringing it into line with that of others. In the same way urban spaces differentiate
themselves by prompting different ways of walking. Some lend themselves to an ambling
stroll, others are only fit to be crossed in haste. Passers-by vary their gait depending on the
place in which they are, speeding up or slowing down, dragging their feet or walking briskly.
They meander more or walk more gently when the tension drops or when time slows down.
Whether we focus on sound output or the pace of movement, the problem may be posed in
the same terms, the possible sharing of an embodied temporality. Or in other words, the
rhythmic agreement that develops in a given ambiance is due to bodies being brought into
temporal phase, permitting the existence of a common world.
Variation: modulated ambiance
Variation refers to city-dwellers power to modulate urban ambiances, which vary
depending on how a place is used and occupied. Public perceptions and actions may be
interpreted at two levels: on the one hand they are accomplished as a function of the
affordances offered by the environment; on the other they have the power to activate or deactivate some of these resources. Paradoxically although whole swathes of literature have
addressed the way the built environment makes action possible, very little work has looked at
it as a medium by which inhabitants may express themselves. Accomplishing an action is
based to a large extent on data provided by our surroundings, but we should not forget that
this is not achieved without simultaneously modulating the framework on which action is
based.
Territory. The built environment favours certain practices by offering them suitable
supports, but the practices themselves change the environment's properties. Just compare a
place when it is busy or deserted, and it is immediately apparent how much the physical
presence of the public changes territorial structure. For example the way the public fans out
over a space affects the scope for movement across it. A densely occupied space may force
passers-by to slow down or perhaps even make a detour. Human presence configures the
room available for movement by creating areas of varying fluidity or obstruction and setting a
specific rhythm for the space being crossed.
Favourite meeting points temporarily organise a place's sound. A sudden cry or the
murmur of the crowd, the shouts of children or applause, can give new depth to a space,
making audible a source that is still out of sight. Depending on its location and the manner in
which it propagates, such sound output, linked to ongoing activities, highlights the existence
of certain areas to the detriment of others. The sound actions of the public provide clues to
their presence, while at the same time revealing the spatial morphology of the site. In short
the different ways in which we occupy and frequent a space impact on the sensory
composition of the urban territory. The production of a sonic territory often involves two or
more spaces overlapping. The sound atmosphere is not just here, in the immediate
proximity, nor yet only over there, at a distance, but simultaneously here and over there.
From this point of view the built environment may be defined in terms of material systems,
which furnish resources for action, modifying practice at the same time as they are updated
to suit the usages to which they lend themselves.
The activity of city-dwellers may be seen as filtering or amplifying the practical
possibilities that a space affords. Affirming the public's capacity to modify the sensory
amenities of a place goes hand-in-hand with recognition of the modular and circumstantial
character of the built environment.
Details. As we shall see it often takes very little, almost nothing, to change an
ambiance. What may seem a minor detail or an anecdotal phenomenon of no great
importance is sometimes enough to qualify the whole of the sensory environment.
Walking provides a remarkable illustration of this point, because it provides a way of
modifying most of a place's sensory qualities. In close relation to the overall morphology of
the site the ground surface plays an essential role here. Its various properties – smooth or
rough, firm or soft, matt or reflective, absorbent or reverberating, etc. – are updated in and by
a visitor's movement. The ground does not only provide an affordance for walking, but also
the material basis for various gaits, revealing itself in its relation to sound and light. Some
surfaces encourage us to drag our feet or make us step cautiously. In other cases we stamp,
stumble or slide more easily. The various ways of walking resonate differently and qualify the
place sound-wise by giving it a specific rhythm and duration. A place is consequently not
atemporal, coming alive thanks to both distinctive qualities of motion and sound. It should
also be noted that some surfaces are more sonorous than others, reverberating more,
making it easier for walkers to express themselves in sound. In this respect walking is more
or less audible, depending on the place being traversed, with the ground and surroundings
amplifying or dampening the sound of movement. Furthermore the manner in which the foot
comes into contact with the ground depends on both the physical properties of the ground
and the type of footwear. The body of the walker itself is endowed with attributes that play a
part in modulating the sound atmosphere: stiletto or platform heels, for instance (but also
wheelie suitcases or roller-skates, strollers or wheelchairs, etc.). Steps may crunch, squeak,
click, scrape, rub, ring out or resonate. Sometimes footsteps produce an indistinct noise, a
relatively continuous, dull murmur. In other cases they trigger unexpected events by
revealing uneven patches of ground (a loose paving stone, a rocking manhole cover, etc.).
They may even tell a story when each footfall is sufficiently clear for an observer to be able to
follow a person's progress and visualize what is going on. Even if countless mechanical
sounds invade the public arena in cities (escalators, fans, piped music), the lack of motor
traffic in underground areas and pedestrian concourses helps to make footsteps stand out in
the sound environment. The ground is thus an instrument of sound modulation in a place
with which the public plays.
I have taken the ground as a paradigmatic example of the public's sensory variation.
Other surfaces with which we come into contact, such as stairs or doors could be described
in a similar way. Without going into detail, simply opening a door may reveal a view, add
light, cause a draft, let in smells or sounds, etc. In any case, we should note that the material
components of the space enable the public to modulate its sensory qualities with
considerable subtlety. The tiniest detail of a built system may filter or neutralise the
expressive force driving the activities underway.
Mark. The public does not often allow itself to be apprehended as an undifferentiated
whole, as an indistinct mass investing an equally homogeneous space. Certain personal
attributes and situated practices provide a way of making one's mark, of making a particular
display or forming a distinct group.
Smells, smoke, heat and sounds are not only due to the built environment and its
physical characteristics. They denote and express a human presence. The smell of perfume
or cigarettes may mingle with others emerging from nearby shops. Smells tend to disappear
into ventilation or air-conditioning systems or persist by impregnating fabrics, but they
nevertheless sometimes emerge from the ambient environment. The trail left by a perfume or
the area tainted by the smoke from a cigarette provide a sensory trace of past or present
usage. Such traces, of varying evanescence or persistence, personality or anonymity, are
the result of a place being used. But at the same time they requalify it. In the same way, heat
varies as a function of a place's frequentation, a large number of bodies in movement
generating a far from negligible output of calories. Whatever the scope for air circulation, a
dense and lasting crowd tends to warm up a closed space and lend it a character it lacked
earlier the same day.
Regarding sound, a child's shout fills a deserted, resonant place, exaggerating its
presence, much as a group suddenly entering a square may produce a wave-like movement
that reconfigures the whole of the sound space. In addition, though we demonstrated above
that places tend to be embodied in shared rhythms, this is not always the case. It is enough
for a single person to start running through a mass of slow-moving pedestrians, to falter and
start looking for their way, or to stumble unexpectedly in the midst of the advancing crowd,
for their presence to be noticeable and noticed. These little incidents or micro-events
contribute to a place's ambiance, leaving room for improvisation and the unexpected.
Lastly some more or less spontaneous or ritual practices punctuate the atmosphere
in public places. The increasingly frequent use of mobile phones, car drivers hooting their
horns in celebration of a wedding, and even Saturday-night car-races are just a few
examples of the sound events people may use to make their presence felt by others.
Similarly the growing use of roller-blades, skateboards, push-bikes and other such wheeled
devices significantly change the pace of contemporary urban spaces, enabling new
categories of player to enter the arena. Increasingly equipped with roving technology citydwellers have access to new forms of ostentation and self-expression, which leave their
imprint on the urban ambiance.
To sum up, making one's mark consists in leaving an imprint on the ambiance of a
place, depositing a perceptible trace or behaving in a singular or unexpected manner. From
this point of view an ambiance cannot be reduced to the sum of individual output or selfexpression. Rather it engages a continuous, back-and-forth movement between what is
ordinary and what becomes remarkable. In this respect the micro-events of daily life serve as
a reminder that at any moment an atmosphere may be requalified.
Alteration: framed ambiance
Alteration refers to the work done by the public to format a place's ambiance. The
activity of passers-by is so powerful that it tends to form the main framework for this process.
City-dwellers do not merely take advantage of the resources offered by a place, but
reconfigure the sensory context on which they draw to complete their activities. In a way they
produce the very conditions of their actions and transform ambiances into an essentially
practical domain.
Field. Depending on how busy a space may be, the conditions of its perception may
be affected. It is not so much the sensory qualities that are at issue here as the perceptible
world itself, or in other words the scope for accessing, or not, wholly or in part, the
surrounding space. More precisely human presence may affect the range of sight and
hearing.
Reducing our field of perception and its reach impacts on sight and hearing.
Regarding sound our access to distant sources is significantly reduced in a densely packed
crowd (a demonstration, the rush-hour crush of pedestrians, busy city-centre shops or
narrow streets, etc.). Not only do the bodies limit the propagation of signals over any
appreciable distance by forming a screen, but, to an even greater extent, the noise produced
(particularly voices and steps) by nearby people tends to drown out more remote sounds. In
this case passers-by are immersed in a bath of sound, consisting primarily of scraps of
conversation from the people following or preceding us, or coming the other way. In such a
context it is above all the human presence and the sound output of the public that determines
our range of hearing. Here, as in the case of sight, it seems impossible clearly to distinguish
different planes or scales of perception.
Taking the measure of place consists in reconfiguring the spatiality of the place from
a perceptive point of view. This concerns the materiality of bodies themselves and their
capacity for acting as an obstacle to sight or hearing. Even if they pay particular attention
passers-by suffer a restriction in their perceptive field, while at the same time being one of
the main factors in this process.
Discernment. Passers-by use their senses to act and interact with others, but they
must sometimes cope with problematic situations that cannot be grasped in their immediacy.
Some of the information provided by the environment is perceived as incongruous,
ambiguous or out of place. In this case the disparity between our perceptive expectations
and the information actually received attracts our attention, obliging us to reframe it
completely.
Such perceptive disturbances may be caused by the sound or visual environment, or
more commonly by the separation of what we see and hear. At a visual level some
reflections may multiply or invert views, producing optical illusions that are only resolved as
we move forward. Contrary to what is usual, passers-by may see what is going on behind
them, catch sight of bits of space upside-down or see the same object simultaneously from
several points of view. In addition some light configurations may indicate a point of access
that does not actually exist or give the mistaken impression that an exit exists. Passers-by
thus tend to stray, only realising afterwards that they have been fooled by an illusion. With
regard to sound some spaces are extremely ubiquitary, to such an extent that it is difficult to
identify precisely the nature and origin of the sounds they are hearing. It is consequently
difficult to rely on the sound environment to find their bearings or direct their course. Thought
is required to solve this problem of interpretation. A double-take is sometimes necessary to
check, and perhaps correct, their version. The various anamorphoses of the perceived space
require the subject to make inferences, or deductions, testing all of their cognitive skills.
Difficulties often arise due to the disparity between what is seen and heard. For
example only a few people seem to be visible, whereas many can be heard. Or on the
contrary we may see a group of buskers busily playing and dancing, without being able to
hear the music that accompanies their movement. In another instance a historic monument,
of great importance as a symbolically and a part of our heritage, only produces insignificant,
banal sounds, that seem mainly related to our private lives and much too familiar. Such
sounds seem incongruous or out of place, in the sense that they relate to another context. In
short there seems to be a mistake on the soundtrack. We are dealing with a form of
dissonance between what is seen and heard, with the decontextualization of sound from its
visual frame of reference.
Showing discernment involves making sense of the surrounding atmosphere despite
the perceptive enigmas encountered. The work of framing carried out by passers-by makes it
possible to give a common sense to a shared environment and continue using a public space
together. In other words scenic intelligibility is a basic component of public life in that it
makes it possible to maintain the self-evident nature of familiar features by finding solutions
to perceptive discordances and practical problems.
Conclusion
We have seen that an ambiance emerges from a triple process: acclimatization,
variation and alteration. These processes are always at work simultaneously in an ambiance
but their respective power nevertheless varies from one atmosphere to another. Some
ambiances lend themselves to change more than others, and are more amenable to variation
and improvisation. It is a matter of greater or lesser contextual opening or closure, or in other
words the relative capacity of an ambiance to integrate, exacerbate or neutralize the
expressive power of social activities. For lack of a better term, perhaps we may speak of
“contextual oscillation”, the ability of an ambiance to polarize, balance or alternate various
types of relation to our environment.
Such result brings me to a few last remarks related to the built environment. It is
obvious now that with architecture we cannot radically separate the material world from the
immaterial one, the spatial forms from the temporal dynamics. Instead of speaking in terms
of the beauty of an architectural object, I prefer to focus on the capacity of a built
environment to intensify everyday experience and be responsive to its inhabitants. On the
other side, architecture is animated, brought to life through our very ordinary actions,
gestures and practices. It involves an aesthetics of engagement that is very much grounded
on our sense of dwelling. To conclude on this never ending process of dwelling in the world,
let me finish with the british social anthropologist Tim Ingold: “In dwelling in the world, we do
not act upon it, or do things to it; rather we move along with it. Our actions do not transform
the world, they are part and parcel of the world’s transforming itself”.